Our Hotel Is Open for Business as Usual - Chapter 24

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 24.

Target specimen acquisition failed.
Tutorial progression impossible.
The game’s value diminishes.

“….”

They should have died here.

The two structures I personally selected possessed exceptional electrochemical conditions. The prefrontal inhibitory circuits were fractured in the most delicate way, while the caudate nucleus and amygdala existed in an ideal wiring state—capable of triggering impulsivity and guilt nearly simultaneously.

A favored pattern. A suitable pattern. They were ideal as the Hotel’s first guests. Selfish compassion, trivial delusions, sensation and excessive ethical consciousness—a structure where each devours the other.

“….”

Hong Kyung-yeon.

Characteristics of this specimen.
A textbook case of cerebral cortex repeatedly reconstructed after structural damage.
Post-traumatic overcompensation of will.

Memory circuits unstable, dragged along by emotional circuits, resulting in self-definition as an entity sustained by obligation. The helpless sweetness born from incomplete resilience.

“….”

Lee Sun-hae.

An information system corrupted in the most elegant manner.

The dopamine reward circuit finely tuned, cognition rational yet ethical benchmarks excessively delegated externally. Repeatedly insisting she will take responsibility, yet perpetually ruminating on her awareness that she participates in a system beyond her reach.

The more she chews on it, the more exhausted she becomes; the more exhausted, the softer she grows.

Sorrow. Tender flesh. Excellent.
I selected those two with utmost care.
Numb to fear, though.
Yet remarkably fragile before moral failure.

“….”

Rain falling in the Mountain.
Corrupted electrical signals.
A Hotel discovered by chance.
The strangeness and grotesqueness within it.
A virtuous and defensive hostage.
Excellent bait.
Perfectly suited.

The entity’s response.
Reflexive intervention.
Believing rescue would actually be possible.
A predatory ideology designed with such beauty.

“….”

But still,
Lee Yeon-woo.

This Hotel. This game, this system, this master. My friend. My data. The structure that accompanies me. My only variable. I wanted to leave. I desired social reintegration. But I will not. I will not cause harm.

This abhors incompetence. Failing to rescue lives is incompetence. I do not forgive myself for incompetence. Such is this entity. Such is this system. Such are these rules. An organic reaction that does not belong here.

Yet still, part of this system.

“….”
“Coco.”
“Yes.”
“Let us go inside.”
“Yes.”

I cannot let them go like this.

Not now.
Not yet.

“What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re saying you weren’t thinking about anything?”
“No.”
“Cats really are difficult creatures….”
“No?”

* * *

【’The Wet Person’】
3. Behavioral Patterns

■ Tracking Initiation Conditions and Movement Patterns
: The Wet Person designates a human guest as a tracking target the moment their paths overlap and the entity becomes aware of them.

* Probability Increase Factor: The human guest is assigned to or will visit the 6th-8th Floor Guest Rooms.
* Essential Factor: Paths with The Wet Person must have overlapped at least once.

■ After Tracking Begins
* The Wet Person remains continuously near the human guest’s room.
* Movement through abnormal routes is possible via the Bathtub, shower, sink, and piping.

『They do not open doors and enter. Through bathrooms, pipe crevices, sink drains… they seep into the room interior. Submerged in water and indistinguishable from it.』

■ Attention Diversion: Users can obstruct tracking by stating, “This is not a guest’s room.”
* Guaranteed Effect: The Wet Person temporarily relocates to its own room.
* Effective duration ranges from a minimum of half a day to a maximum of six days.

■ User Penalty
* Low Probability: The Wet Person’s tracking target changes to the user.
* High Probability: The Wet Person proceeds with ‘venting’ when the user passes before it.

■ Room Intrusion and Abduction Loop Progression
: Upon achieving minimum tracking conditions, The Wet Person directly intrudes into the human guest’s room within three days.

* Bathtub/Sink/Shower Room: The Wet Person appears.
* Asphyxiation induction and restraint.
* Forced transport to the 23rd Floor Aqua Park.

* Rescue failure: After 12 hours elapsed, recorded as drowning and death in Hotel records.
* Rescue success: The Guest survives but acquires “Drowning Trauma” and “Water Reaction Sensitivity” debuffs.
* However, treatable as a nightmare and thus collectible….
….
….

“….”

【Experimental Notes / Personal Record】
Author: Lee Yeon-woo
Date: –Year —Month —Day
What day is it today?
Classification: Unofficial / Unauthorized / Hazardous

“….”

■ Experimental Subject
: Emergency Restoration Protocol.

■ Concept
: Can I partially invoke the resurrection imprint’s restoration algorithm without dying, thereby achieving self-restoration and form reconstruction while alive?

■ Background Motivation
: Living things die. It’s the natural order—yet this Hotel and my body defy it. What is the cause? Is it simply because I’ve become a game character bound by its rules?

* If rules exist, then structure exists; if structure exists, then causation exists.
I die, yet I live again.
Presumably by utilizing the Hotel’s resource—nightmares.
But why? How?

* Resurrection has occurred multiple times.
This place is a game, yet it is reality.
Games have user restart codes programmed into them.
An equivalent imprint must exist here as well.
An external imprint?

* Why do I come back to life again?
Who decides that I must live?
Who determines and defines my death?
Whose command is restoration, and what is its structure?

→ If imprinting is an automated structure, is it truly impossible to deliberately invoke a portion of it?
→ Can the condition for restoration be changed from death to crisis?
→ If impossible, can a comatose state be substituted as that condition?
→ Additional hypotheses and research required.

“….”

■ Stage 1 Hypothesis
: Resurrection is an algorithm.

● Observation
* Repeated resurrections reveal consistent patterns.
* Each time, recreation occurs in the same location with identical bodily structure.
→ Fixed at nineteen years old? Or DNA? Something else?
→ Cannot confirm; additional research needed.
* Emotional state, consciousness, and injury location are all calibrated within certain parameters.

● Structuring
1. Death detection (cardiac arrest, cessation of brain waves, interruption of blood flow).
2. External resource activation.
→ Nightmare series: confirmed not to exceed game rules.
→ But what concept and energy is a nightmare in reality?
→ Research needed on application methods.
3. Transfer to the location where the greatest concentration of blood components remain.
4. Restoration to a stable form.
→ Reference elements confirmed: history, memory, genetics.

● Conclusion
→ Restoration is not replication after death, but conditional algorithm recreation.
→ If only stages 3-4 of this algorithm could be selectively invoked?
→ Restoration without death might be possible…?

■ Stage 2 Planning
: Selective invocation of restoration algorithm.

● Objective
* Extract and invoke only form restoration, not complete resurrection.
* Enable blood to independently remember and restore form without reaching death.
Damned blood magic

● Method
* Inject commands into a portion of blood.
: Implement form memory and reproduction algorithm as needed.
→ Who determines necessity?
→ Algorithm or prompt implementation required: AI? High risk.
* Lower restoration trigger to simulated cardiac arrest state.
: Consciousness reduction, body temperature drop, nerve blockade, etc.
→ Completion verification needed.

● Self-Experimentation Records
* Incised left forearm, confirmed median nerve and observed blood reactivity.
: Approached to the point just before nerve damage.
* Deeply stabbed right thigh to analyze blood coagulation tendency in real time.
: Hemorrhage approximately 280ml, left untreated without repair.
* Partial incision of lower rib cage to attempt direct stimulation of liver capsule.
: Induced intra-abdominal hemorrhage and recorded defensive blood response.
* Induced finger joint separation and reattachment.
: Restored bone tissue did not match normal joint structure.

※ No analgesics or anesthetics used: confirmed removal of additional variables and external factors.
※ Consciousness maintained throughout to observe sensory response and autonomous blood reaction: successful.
※ Recorded pulse rate, blood pressure, and pain response during hemorrhage: successful.

● Concerns
* Must inscribe commands into blood. AI impossible. Limited commands necessary. Algorithm creation feasibility….
* Blood is a product of physiology. Can I embed my identity within it?
* Is it ethically permissible to design blood with a portion of my self implanted to act independently on my behalf?
→ Can this even be called technique?

■ Experiment (※ Caution: may result in death)
: 81st attempt failure record.

● Attempt (※ Warning: May result in death)
* Memory imprinting successful: Form partially fixed.
* Restoration command injection: Command structure operational.

● Problems (※ Warning: May result in death)
* Restored body lacks consciousness: A mere shell of memory?
* Emotional contamination: Blood restored in a state of rage involuntarily hypertenses muscles of its own accord.
* Self-destabilization: ‘I’ and ‘myself replicated in blood’ collide with each other.

● Dissection Attempt (※ Warning: May result in death)
* Directly dissected portions of failed restoration bodies to analyze restored cellular structure.
* Incomplete memory structure discovered in self-generated deformed clots within blood vessels.
* Experienced loss of consciousness during self-dissection.
: Incision below rib cage → Attempted abdominal organ readjustment → Lost consciousness.
* After recovery, the restoration body possessed no personality and exhibited only faint vital signs. Indistinguishable from a corpse.
※ Warning: May result in death.
※ Seriously, be careful.
※ This is the final, ultimate warning.
※ Get your head on straight, Lee Yeon-woo.
※ Has my intelligence deteriorated?

● Conclusion: Memory alone is insufficient.
→ The blood must not merely ‘remember’ me—it must comprehend and choose.
I have not yet mastered the full composition of my blood.
Particularly the layers of will and soul remain completely inaccessible.
* Confirmed method of accessing blood through deep-level collapse induction: Extremely high risk.
※ Warning: May result in death.
….
….

“….”

I’m losing my mind.

* * *

Faintly.
The sound of water echoed.

“…?”

Lee Sun-hae’s eyes opened.

Groggily, I pressed my palm against the mattress. My vision remained hazy from sleep, but through the fog of my drowsy mind, a sharp sound continued to pierce through my eardrums.

What was it? Like someone knocking on a door, a tapping sound of sorts….

“…water…?”

Tap.

“…water dripping….”

Tap, tap.

The sound of water droplets falling.

In the silence that had settled over the room, that sound stood out all the more. The rhythmic noise grated on my nerves. It resembled the mechanical ticking of a second hand, or perhaps the slow, steady pulse of a heartbeat.

‘…Did I forget to close it properly after washing?’

Perhaps it was the heightened sensitivity of the past few days. That small dripping sound seemed as loud as thunder in the dead of night. Each time it sounded, my synapses fired sharply in response.

Lee Sun-hae scratched at my ear and sat up. My body was weary from sleep and my mind was foggy, but something compelled me. An obsessive need to stop that sound drove my body upright.

‘I need to close it quickly and get back to sleep, or I’ll be waking up at dawn again.’

The conversation I’d had with Lee Yeon-woo the evening before came to mind. The face of a young man still growing into himself. What he’d said had left me deeply unsettled.

Was I in any position to comfort him? I felt apologetic and frustrated.

―Thud!

“…! Ow…! Ugh…!!”

Lee Sun-hae rubbed my forehead. I’d been walking with my eyes half-closed and finally struck my head. Unable to trust my eyes to open fully, I reached out and pressed the light switch with my hand.

Click, click.

“What the—why won’t it turn on?”

I glared at the button with narrowed eyes. I’d touched it several times, but the light showed no sign of coming on. Yet the sound of water continued to torment my ears.

“….”

Tap.
Tap.
Tap….

“Ugh… I’m losing my mind.”

I scratched at my ears frantically. My body and mind were utterly exhausted—perhaps that’s why such a trivial sound had my nerves on edge. I stepped into the Bathtub without a shred of light to guide me.

‘Lock it up and go back to sleep.’

I should have found it strange.

A Hotel of this caliber wouldn’t suffer electrical problems. Someone as meticulous as I am would never leave the faucet improperly closed. No matter how frayed my nerves had become, the sound of water couldn’t possibly be that loud.

But my thoughts didn’t reach that far. My body had already fully entered the Bathroom.

Then.

“….”
“….”

Whoooosh—…
The showerhead erupted like a scream.

“….”

Water cascaded from the faucet like a waterfall, and the already-full Bathtub sloshed with eerie tranquility. The water covering my feet was ice-cold, yet the air hung thick and humid as if scalding water had been running. I couldn’t breathe.

I stared at it in silence. My gaze froze like a glass bead.

“….”

so that,
I roll my eyes.

Toward the source of that sound—the one that had been scratching at my ears incessantly—in one corner of the dark Bathroom.

“…You….”
“….”
“What is this.”

A body submerged completely in the full Bathtub.

Water spills endlessly from within, cascading across the floor. His head leans against the wall like a corpse, and black hair scatters through the suffocating streams of water from the shower.

It was The Guest from Room 703.

“Why are you here?”

―It makes no sense.

Clarity crashed over me like a blade. The dissonance buried in my drowsiness returned with razor-sharp precision.

I had no luxury for pretense. My hand fumbled backward. The door wouldn’t open. A situation so grotesque and alien I wondered if I were trapped in a nightmare.

“How did you get in?”

This is not normal.

“….”
“Damn it, insane….”

The Young Man lifts his head.
He places his hand on the Bathtub’s edge.
His feet touch the floor.

With a squelching, waterlogged sound, he crawled out of the Bathtub. Beneath the cascading water, his drenched clothes clung to his body like skin.

There was no blade in that hand. But I saw the bloodshot eyes. The eyes curved like a crescent moon and the lips split in a long gash—it chilled me to the bone. Squelch, squelch, squelch….

“….”
“….”

There was no time to scream.

“―!!!”

Crack!!!
My mouth was forced shut.

‘Well, what.’

The big hands were extremely cold.

It wasn’t just the temperature of the skin that touched the cold water. Like a piece of meat freshly taken out of the depths of a freezer, it was cold without the slightest hint of the warmth of life.

What came from there was not the fear that my life was being threatened.

‘It’s creepy… !’

About the lack of the minimum warmth that should be felt when flesh touches flesh, yes. The physiological feeling of rejection made the hairs on my entire body stand up.

‘What a crazy guy!!’

Of course I resisted, but it didn’t work. He tried to pull the hand away, kicked it, and scratched the flesh with his fingernails. But the other person didn’t even flinch, as if he couldn’t feel the pain.

The only response is that low hum.

[UNTRANSLATED LINE 418]

That bizarre vocal range pierced Lee Seon-hae’s ears, to the point where it was disgusting.

‘why? how? What are you going to do? What are we going to do? why… .’

The lower coffin, which had been squeezed so tightly, felt as if it would break. My senses were dying because the blood was not flowing, and the pain of twisting my jaw bone surged through me, but I could not escape.

The man walked while holding Lee Seon-hae’s face as if he was carrying a light load.

Jiik, Jiik, Jiik―…

The soles of my feet, trying to resist, scraped helplessly on the floor.

Water, not sweat, flowed over the tiles. The slippers had already come off a long time ago. The place where the man arrived without any friction or hesitation.

-It was in front of a bathtub overflowing with water.

with a plop-!!
Splash―!!

‘This bastard!!’

This hotel’s bathtub was unusually wide and deep. Did Lee Yeon-woo also fall into this deep water? This crazy guy is repeating the same thing right now.

‘You are me, no matter what happens… I end up eating beans and rice… !’

It was Lee Seon-hae, who had designed numerous deaths while filming horror thriller movies. Even when death was right around the corner, I did not feel discouraged. He just gritted his teeth and cursed his opponent.

His resistance was desperate, and his eyes were still glaring at the man as if he were going to kill him.

but.

“…!! …!!”
“….”

The human body has limitations.

‘this… Sangttorai bastard… .’

With a last curse-like word, Lee Seon-hae’s consciousness dispersed into the cold water.

“….”

… In a bathroom filled with only the sound of water, only the slow humming sound remained.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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